


Painted Scars

by itsalwaysyou_jw



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, POV John Watson, Painting, Scarred Sherlock, Scars, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsalwaysyou_jw/pseuds/itsalwaysyou_jw
Summary: John paints the scars on Sherlock's back after discovering their existence.***With his free hand, John brushed the tips of his fingers against the bludgeoned skin of Sherlock’s back so softly, the touch barely registered. He felt the grooves and mountains of his skin, the dim light providing just enough light to identify the discolouration. The marble skin was altered with splashes of rose and slices of ivory. They were vines of blooming injuries, flattened and diminished with time but forever damaged.John closed his eyes tight enough to spot circles and reopened them, willing with the whole of his being to stop the emotional train barreling toward tears within him. It was painful, this sight of abuse on Sherlock’s back.





	Painted Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SosoHolmesWatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SosoHolmesWatson/gifts).



> Happy birthday to [SosoHolmesWatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SosoHolmesWatson)! This was written for her after she told me that one of her favourite tropes was combining art forms (ex: written word & painting). Plus, the Sherlock Challenge for December is "Painting" so this ficlet is killing two birds with one stone. I'm sorry it couldn't be longer, I was a bit pressed on time.
> 
> Happy New Year to everybody else reading this!

“Are you comfortable?”

“Completely.”

Regardless of the confirmation, John shifted his weight slightly to provide a perceived increase in comfort. A shaking breath escaped him to steady his nerves, to calm his panicked mind. The paint brush was trembling in his hands, the heat from Sherlock’s body emanating from beneath him to provide him with a comforting sense of closeness that he so desperately craved.

With his free hand, he brushed the tips of his fingers against the bludgeoned skin of Sherlock’s back so softly, the touch barely registered. He felt the grooves and mountains of his skin, the dim light providing just enough light to identify the discolouration. The marble skin was altered with splashes of rose and slices of ivory. They were vines of blooming injuries, flattened and diminished with time but forever damaged.

John closed his eyes tight enough to spot circles and reopened them, willing with the whole of his being to stop the emotional train barreling toward tears within him. It was painful, this sight of abuse on Sherlock’s back. Scars crawling along every inch of his back with reckless abandon were causing a horror show in his head: Sherlock, tortured. Sherlock, whipped into obedience. Sherlock, alone and afraid and enduring unimaginable pain.

“John?”

“Yes?” He wished the wavering tone hadn’t escaped in that solitary syllable.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Sherlock’s voice was so small, so loaded with a vulnerability John hadn’t known he was capable of.

“I told you, my love,” he whispered with closed eyes, “that I want to. Remember, I asked you.”

Two months previous, when the two of them had begun their tumultuous affair of the heart, Sherlock had whispered between desperate kisses that he wished to take the physical relationship slowly. John had incorrectly assumed the request was born from a distaste for sex and agreed with no hesitation. He didn’t need Sherlock’s body to love him. He just needed him.

The truth was revealed as the pair were participating in a passionate embrace nearly two months later and John’s hands clasped desperately and unbidden at Sherlock’s back, fingers registering the slightest of texture underneath that cursed shirt. His hands froze and, too late, Sherlock understood the source of the halted motion.

“Sherlock,” John said with a nervous smile because surely it couldn’t have been… “What is-”

He was rigid as a tree for one long second before he stepped away hastily, his eyes burning with desperation to get away from John. “Nothing,” he said incriminatingly.

“Sherlock,” he repeated, his world teetering dangerously beneath him. His smile was gone, now. “What is on your back?”

Sherlock’s eyes were wide with alarm, terror, and another emotion that John couldn’t recognize. Guilt? Embarrassment? “I said it’s nothing, John.”

“Show me,” he commanded because he knew there was no forgetting the touch that was lingering like pinpoints on the pads of his fingers.

Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Sherlock manoeuvred the buttons on his shirt. His face was pale with anxiety, his body betraying him with staggering hands and the chewing of his lip. As the shirt slipped away, Sherlock held his breath and turned around with the grace of a crashing car. His motions were jerky and sudden until his back was exposed and John was certain he would never breathe again.

 _Scars_.

The word repeated in his head over and over and over and over until John was mad with it. There was no breath, no blinking, no sense, and nothing other than the sight before him.

 _Scars_.

Uneven, violent, unflinching wounds from an unseen culprit.

 _Scars_.

He would kill them. He would kill the man who did this and he wouldn’t rest until he did. Spots of red flashed in front of him until he didn’t register the scars and there was only blinding fury.

Then it was done and Sherlock was facing him, eyes wide to make his deductions and his hands fidgeting with one another. John tried to say something- anything at all, but his whole body was paralyzed with horror that Sherlock misinterpreted.

Gathering his shirt in one horrified hand, Sherlock dropped his gaze and walked away from the spot where John stood with shame.

“Sherlock,” John just barely managed to scrape out from his terrified throat. He would have set fire to his own heart just to erase the source of those scars form existence. Sherlock froze in the doorway, knuckles pale with their grip on the shirt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sherlock stood silently for a long moment, his brain’s churning was nearly audible in the silence. “It’s a horror I can’t bear to see in your eyes. These scars… they’re… ugly.”

John wanted to rip his own hair out in frustration. “Ugly?!” he shouted. “God, Sherlock! I’m not horrified because they’re _ugly_.”

A long silence, John’s heart the only audible sound. “You’re not?”

“No.”

“But you _are_ horrified.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock turned to look him in the eyes and, for once, John made no effort to disguise his thoughts. He hoped every single thought was as clear as text for Sherlock to read.

“Why?” he whispered with trepidation.

John sought out exactly the right words in the English language to express his horror. “Because I cannot fathom such horror being unloaded onto you. I feel… a terror that such a terrifying thing was done to you.”

“So,” he responded after some time in silence, “you don’t think they’re ugly?”

The question was appalling to him and he couldn’t keep the offence out of his voice. “No, of course not. Jesus, you’re like… a work of art, Sherlock.”  
And that is how they came to this situation: John’s right hand shaking with a brush as he beheld the scarred back of his friend turned lover. John meant it when he claimed this man a work of art. After asking- begging- to see the scars, Sherlock had permitted it. John had traced the scars and fought back tears before asking Sherlock if he could paint him. Now, every curve, every dip, every centimetre of perfection combined to make what was surely more art than human. He was petrified by the actions taken against Sherlock to cause these scars, but they weren’t ugly. They were a part of him, a portion of his existence, and physical proof of his resilience in life.

Sherlock Holmes was art, Sherlock Holmes was perfection, Sherlock Holmes was human.

Faced with painting the skin beneath him, John’s legs were spread onto either side of his hips, uncomfortably aware of the sculpted muscle beneath him. He hadn’t thought of what to paint and had rather assumed an idea would strike him when the moment came. Instead, he was fixated on the pattern of damaged skin and became consumed with emotion.

 _Focus_.

What colour did he associate with Sherlock?

Blue. Yellow- though he couldn't think why.

What adjective did he associate with Sherlock?

Steady. Reliable. Yet still changeable.

Why was he desperately, unflinchingly, undeniably in love with him?

His good heart. His brilliant mind. His firm moral code.

His hand started moving into the paint and onto his friend’s back before he was consciously aware of his decision.

 

A magnificent tree, rooted in love, spread across Sherlock’s back with power and reckless abandon. A golden truck, strong enough to sustain millennia of wear, sprouted blue leaves of calming grandeur. The roots spiralled into sight unseen beneath trousers, the branches going in every direction to follow the scars that gave them a canvas.

And there was the heart of John’s artistic vision: the scars were not ugly, they were a portion of the tree- of Sherlock- and where a portion of the trees life- of part of Sherlock’s life.

“I’m done,” he whispered after one final brush of blue on the top-most branch.

The scars lent the tree a three-dimensional quality and John’s heart clenched with affection. This man whom he loved so dearly was more strong than John could ever be.

“A tree?” said Sherlock, his voice hoarse with lack of use. It was a mere guess based on the strokes that had danced across his back and John couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across his face. Clever man.

“Yes, my love.”

Without warning, Sherlock’s body jerked to the side, throwing John slightly off-balance. With mere beginnings of protest, Sherlock was rolling over beneath John’s legs to face him directly. Under any ordinary situation, John would have been pleased to be straddling the man and staring into those impossibly coloured eyes. Now, however, he noted the smear of blue and gold that trailed beneath him and felt indignation at the blasé disregard of John’s work of art.

“Hey!” he shouted, resentment ringing through his voice and body. “What are you-”

“I already know what you drew,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “And I know I’ll never forget. I know you’ll remember and I know the gesture meant more than the art did, which would have washed off in my shower anyway.”

He was right, of course, but the streaks of paint across the bed left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered.

“I love you.”

The words were a bullet to his unexpecting ears. They were precious syllables he'd waited lifetimes to hear. John’s eyes flew to Sherlock’s, an enormous love filling his heart until he was more than certain that he would explode from it.

“I love _you_.”

Hands tight in John’s shirt, he pulled John into a kiss that instantly left the world behind. There was only Sherlock Holmes and John Watson and an ancient desire to touch every inch of one another.

Forty-seven minutes later, the two were giddy with the after-effects of their sex in a bed coated with a mélange of golden and blue paint. The pair were a collage of colour, the bed stained with John’s art.

As it turned out, the paint would stain the sheets with John’s art. His love for every portion of Sherlock Holmes would prove eternal.

**Author's Note:**

> For my subscribers: Do not worry, Welcome Home is still coming. I took a momentary break from writing it to create this ficlet as a gift. But the NEXT thing I post _will_ be Welcome Home. I promise!
> 
> For everyone else:  
> Find me on Tumblr, if you fancy it:  
> [itsalwaysyou-jw](itsalwaysyou-jw.tumblr.com)  
> If you like WWII, AU fics, and/or slow-burn Johnlock, stay tuned for my upcoming fic: Welcome Home.


End file.
